A Watergate figure: hated to hero

Tuesday

I hate to say it now, but back then, I pretty much hated the guy. It was 1973 and John Dean had broken the Watergate scandal wide open by running to the prosecutor to cut a deal to stay out of prison.

I hate to say it now, but back then, I pretty much hated the guy.

It was 1973 and John Dean had broken the Watergate scandal wide open by running to the prosecutor to cut a deal to stay out of prison.

This Vietnam veteran' still angry with the man running for re-election who said, 'Anyone who can't end this war in four years doesn't deserve to be president!' and then couldn't ' sat glued to his TV and didn't miss one second of the hearings that ultimately brought down the presidency of Richard Nixon.

But, of the 43 characters convicted in that debacle, he bugged me most. And yet, 43 years later, he is one of the great heroes in my life and it saddened me to learn that he passed from this Earth Saturday.

Former Marine Corps Capt. Charles (Chuck) Colson was Nixon's legal counsel in charge of his 'Dirty Tricks' division. Nicknamed the 'Evil Genius' and 'Hatchet Man,' I loathed the man who supposedly vowed he would throw his grandmother under the bus to get Nixon re-elected.

But, something happened on his way to prison; after reading C.S. Lewis' 'Mere Christianity,' Colson turned to faith in Jesus Christ. And, when that announcement was made, we critics laughed and said, 'It's the age-old story; he gets nabbed and suddenly finds Jesus!' We all figured it was just a sympathy ploy (much the same as what many people think of George Zimmerman's apology to Trayvon Martin's family), however, no one knows what's truly in a man's heart, except him ... and The One who created him.

Upon his release from prison, Colson promised prison-mates he wouldn't forget them. He didn't, and quickly founded Prison Fellowship, the world's largest outreach to inmates and their families that continues to change incarcerated lives and has 40,000 trained ministry volunteers in 100 countries.

During these nearly 40 years ' slowly, methodically, assuredly ' the man I loved to hate changed my opinion of him and then helped change my life, especially with his book, 'Loving God.'

In that book, Colson predicates his belief in Christ's resurrection by offering a parallel to Watergate and how difficult it is to contain a lie.

Jesus ' arguably the most powerful and influential man in history ' had 11 hand-picked disciples attending him at His death. Then, even to the death of each disciple, they maintained their story of Jesus' resurrection.

Conversely, Nixon ' with the most powerful office in the world at stake ' had a similar number of hand-picked loyalists surrounding him who, according to Colson, 'couldn't hold a conspiracy together more than two weeks.' Once Dean caved in, they all went running for a deal.

Colson wrote, 'If John Dean and the rest of us were so panic stricken, not by the prospect of beatings and execution, but by political disgrace and a possible prison term, one can only speculate about the emotions of the disciples.

'Unlike men in the White House, the disciples were powerless people, abandoned by their leader, homeless in a conquered land. Yet they clung tenaciously to their enormously offensive story that their leader had risen from his ignoble death and was alive and was the Lord! Nothing less than a witness as awesome as the resurrected Christ could have caused those men to maintain to their dying whispers that Jesus is alive and the Lord.'

In a later interview, Colson continued, ' As we are seeing with Islamic radicals today, people will die for something they believe to be true; but men will never die for something they know to be false.'

That theory had a great impact on me in my Christian infancy and continues to make sense to me today.

I know that to those who hate hearing it, I've written ad nauseam of how my conversion to Christianity changed my life. However, to those who've encountered similar conversion, they never hear it enough.

I'm grateful for men like Charles Colson whose courage and conviction to openly speak their beliefs have been a great inspiration to me.

I'm not going to cut anyone's head off to cram anything down their throat to get them to believe like me, because I believe as Colson does that, ' Christianity doesn't advance by power or conquest, but by love.'

But, what do I know.'

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.